"Ian McDonald - Some Strange Desire (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (McDonald Ian)

Some Strange Desire

a short story by Ian McDonald




19 November, 10:30 P.M.
The hru-tesh is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Mother says he can
remember
Grandmother taking him, while still very small, to watch Josias Cunningham,
Gunsmith by Appointment, of Fleet Street at work on it. In that small shop,
in
those small hours when the city slept, Josias Cunningham worked away while
the
spires and domes of Wren's dream of London rose from the ashes of the Great
Fire, chasing and filing and boring and inlaying. It was a work of love, I
suppose. A masterpiece he could never disclose to another living soul, for it
was the work of demons. On the bone-handled stock is a filigreed silver plate
on
a pivot-pin. Underneath, an inscription: Diabolus me Fecit. The Devil Made
Me.
He was ul-goi of course, Josias Cunningham, Gunsmith by Appointment, of Fleet
Street.
After three hundred years, the firing mechanism is still strong and precise.
It
gives a definite, elegant click as I draw back the bolt and lock it.
Lights are burning in the apartment across the street. The white BMW sits
rain-spattered under its private cone of yellow light. Have you ever known
anyone who drives a white BMW to do anything or be anyone of any significance?
I
cannot say that I have, either. I blow on my fingers. I cannot let them
become
chilled. I cannot let their grip on the hru-tesh slacken and weaken. Hurry up
and go about your business, goi, so I can go about mine and get back into the
dry and the warm. Cold rain finds me in my bolt-hole on the roof, penetrates
my
quilted jacket like needles. None so cold as the needle I have waiting for
you,
goi. I touch the thermos flask beside me, for luck, for reassurance, for the
blessing of the hahndahvi.
Come on, goi, when are you going to finish what you are doing and go out to
collect the day's takings from your boys? Voices are raised in the lighted
apartment across the yellow- lit cobbled street. Male voices. I cannot make
out
the words, only the voices.
Even on my rooftop across the street, the blow is almost palpable. And then
the
weeping. A door slams. I uncap the thermos, shake a tiny sliver of ice into
the